The present invention relates in general to a car collision prevention system for sensing a collision danger and giving an alarm as a result of the sensing, and more particularly to a car collision prevention apparatus and method using dual processors and an automatic sensor switching function in which the dual processors are provided to reduce a load due to an effect of interline and electronic interference in the car where the automatic sensor switching function is performed on the basis of car speed data to automatically switch an ultrasonic wave sensor and a laser sensor for distance measurement in short or long-distance traveling situations of the car.
A car accident is a serious problem directly affecting lives of a driver and passengers in the car. Various safety equipment has been developed for preventing car accidents in response to an increase in the number of the car accidents and an increase in the number of the cars. However, such safety equipment does not take precautions against occurrence of the car accident, it does reduce the danger level in occurrence of the car accident, the object thereof being to save the lives in the occurrence of an accident. To solve this problem, there has recently been proposed a car collision prevention system which senses a collision danger and gives an alarm as a result of the sensing. Such a car collision prevention system performs a distance measurement function using an ultrasonic wave or a laser beam.
However, the car collision prevention system using the distance measurement function has a disadvantage in that it employs a single processor, resulting in a limited software loop time. Also, the use of the single processor presents difficulty in adding a separate function or coupling with other equipment, because the single processor has a limited capacity. Further, the use of only the laser beam makes it hard to measure accurately a distance to an object within a short distance. As a result, the short-distance measurement cannot precisely be performed. This results in a faulty operation of the system in low-speed traveling situations of the car, such as urban traveling.